


Push

by FHC_Lynn



Series: Leverage [3]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-08 19:27:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7770139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FHC_Lynn/pseuds/FHC_Lynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jazz liked to manipulate his world to suit him, but not all objects bend to applied force.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Push

**Author's Note:**

  * For [12drakon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/12drakon/gifts).



> Requested by 12drakon, who wanted to see Jazz's side of the story.

Everyone loved Jazz. From his ready smile to his sage advice to his smooth moves. Everyone wanted a little taste. And it suited him to draw them along. The more faces that looked to him, looked _for_ him, the better. He craved that attention and care like nothing else. It drove him from group to group in the rec hall. It kept him teasing a string of would-be lovers along. Once, in another lifetime, they would have been adoring fans, and Jazz knew his own worth.

Only one face never followed him. Oh, it _looked_ at him. Then right _through_ him.

In the beginning, following all those sleek curves and firm struts with his own gaze, Jazz had played along with the command staff’s, and general infantry’s, desire to pair him off with Prowl. Perhaps stemming from his own narcissism, he loved monochrome mechs, and the red and gold accents flashed when they caught the light. It had been easy to let lust pull him in.

But that cold, cold attitude never thawed.

Prowl remained brisk, impersonal, and downright stiff through every staff meeting. He never sought out anything like a fun time. The mech displayed a scary kind of brilliance every time he opened his mouth, though. And not one glimmer of spark.

The High Command officers were, on the whole, painfully caring mechs. It was why their faction was losing the war. Fools couldn’t dream of slaughtering their enemy, but the enemy sure knew how to slaughter them. While Jazz hadn’t wanted to find himself on the losing side, he knew damned well he would never be killed if they could take him alive. Stripped and reprogramed, sure. But an operative of his caliber would never be wasted.

He had come to realize Prowl would be saved, too. Less than charitably, he wondered if they would even need to strip and reprogram the cold fragger’s brain case for it.

He knew it would have been kinder if Prime had done that himself.

Whoever had built Prowl, had made sure to use the very best in imprinting code. Prowl would never warm to anyone else. He _couldn’t_. They weren’t his people.

And after absorbing that fact, stolen from Ratchet’s files, Jazz rinsed all Prowl’s tactical suggestions through it as a filter. Prowl could slaughter their enemy. But he would slaughter them too, to accomplish the goals he had been given. Protect the Prime. Destroy the enemy.

It was out in the field, abandoning the greyed corpse of his mentor and commander -- one of the very few mechs Jazz let himself truly cared about -- that he fully understood what manner of thing Prowl was. It was hard to truly fathom a mech _not_ caring about him. Staring down at Prowl’s confusion when Jazz dragged his battered body into the fragger’s office, Jazz fully understood Prime’s horror of Prowl.

They were numbers to Prowl. Nothing more. Prowl’s cold, unfeeling mind could win their war at the price of their lives. And Jazz wasn’t about to pay that fee. He wasn’t a match for that processing power, though. Limping through the corridors, he sought Ratchet’s gruff comfort and tried to forget everything but their chief medic’s body and presence for a while. He needed rest before he could tackle the problem of limiting the damage Prowl did in the name of winning.

In the morning, Jazz woke to find Ratchet slipping out of bed, and he growled in resigned disappointment. He didn’t like how often his time with Ratchet got cut short, but the mech’s devotion and compassion had been what drew Jazz to him in the first place.

That Ratchet muttered about _Prowl_ being the trouble this morning as he left reminded Jazz of his problem as much as it puzzled him.

Perhaps it wasn’t kind to drop hints and scatter meanings into mechs’ audials about Prowl, when he finally healed up. But putting them on their guard would keep them alive. Jazz would get to keep their adoration if they were alive. And _Ratchet’s_ precious time.

After what became an infamous processor crash, Prowl changed so subtly Jazz actually didn’t see it. Not at first. After, he saw the fragger out of his office sometimes, lured along by old Ironhide. His anger bubbled up, but his whispers did their job. The orders and plans being shot around the situation room came with lower collateral estimates. Prowl flinched at Jazz’s jabs now, instead of coldly ignoring each to address Prime over his head.

Jazz’s carefully laid acid rolled off Prime, but it caught among some of the officers. It rolled down into the ranks, where they soaked it up. And now it seemed Prowl wasn’t immune to the whispers. He stepped out on his own among the rank and file now even less than before.

Jazz didn’t even have to start the whispers about Prowl being glitched.

Inexplicably, though, Ironhide continued to lure Prowl out. Ironhide liked his mechs on the pretty side, sure, and Prowl was about as well made as they came. Praxus’ vanity had rivaled that of Vos. But Ironhide liked them warm and welcoming, too. Jazz had not ever considered that anyone would end up in Prowl’s bed, let alone that it would be good old Ironhide to breach that perimeter defense.

Ironhide didn’t respond to Jazz’s charm or whispers any more than he allowed Prowl to make them true. Jazz watched him work himself deeper into Prowl’s existence, making it a life. On one hand, Jazz wanted to be grateful. He wanted to trust that Ironhide had brought Prowl around. That Prowl would care if the old mech bought it out there on the battlefield. That he now cared about them all enough to stop grinding them against Megatron’s forces.

Slowly, Jazz understood that wouldn’t be the problem; Prowl did _care_.

The question was if the desperate mech could survive one more loss.

And the lever kept rocking.


End file.
